Forever & Always

A.N.: This story features heavy topics of verbal, emotional, and sëxual abuse. This is your warning if you do not wish to read such stories. -- Large, sweaty hands pushed her roughly into the back seat of her car and held her there as she fought to get out from underneath the boy she thought she liked. Of all the dates they had before tonight, he never made it seem like he would do this. She just had to wear this damned summer dress. “Jesse, please, no.” She pleaded, fighting with every ounce of strength she could; tears were streaming down her face. But Jessie’s hand pressed against her waist, holding her firmly into the seat. His weight perfectly pinned her in the confines of the small back seat, and she was unable to twist out from underneath him. She cried and pleaded with him. A dark chuckle sounded in her ear. “Stop teasing me, Emma. You wanted this; look at you rubbing against me.” Jessie licked her throat, and before she could say another word, he pierced her without mercy, stealing away her virginity. -- Emma bolted upright in bed, panting hard as tears streamed down her face. Looking around, she saw the soft tan walls of her room plastered with family pictures. Rubbing her eyes and face, she gently lay back down and sighed, trying to calm down from the horrid nightmare she had been having. Except it wasn’t a nightmare. That night would forever haunt her. It had plagued every relationship she had ever attempted to be in, yet it had not haunted her dreams for a while. She needed to get help but was too much of a coward to talk to anyone about what had happened to her. Emma Sharp was your average young woman just trying to make it through life and college–if she even decided to return, it was her parents’ dream to finish her education and work hard to earn a big paycheck with a respectable job. Her dreams and those of her parents never seemed to align. She was a free spirit, bubbly, and outgoing. Always busy with work or friends even before that horrid night. She had been on the cheer team at her previous university and cheered competitively in her youth. Her best friend Ashlyn Taylor, whom she had made friends with on Ashlyn’s first day at her competitive cheer gym way back in the day, took up half of her life. They have been inseparable ever since that first day. When Emma moved to college, their friendship drifted slightly with the distance between them, but it stayed strong. It was like old times when she returned home, and they were practically inseparable. It helped that their little sisters were also best friends. Ashlyn had lost her father in junior high school and had been going through some difficult times ever since, but Emma was by her side the whole time. She was always supportive and never once let Ashlyn get too far into her grief. Emma tried to stay connected while living on the other side of the state, but it was hard. Ashlyn sometimes wouldn’t reply for days at a time. Emma’s issues started after she dated Jesse in her sophomore year of high school. She hadn’t told anyone about what had happened for fear of being labeled a liar. Jesse had used her for the one thing he wanted, which was not given willingly. She ended it immediately afterward but had no idea how angry and possessive he could become. She at least had friends and teachers who were there for her when he cornered her in the hallway between classes once. They helped to drive Jesse away after that particular encounter. Emma hated how used she had felt. How gross and unclean she had become, and despite a few of the football team stars knowing that she had been sexually active, none of them had forced her into s*x and backed off when she said no much later on. Emma actively avoided Jesse. When he totaled his car trying to fly out of the parking lot in junior year, wrecking his prized Mustang, she laughed for weeks. After that, she began a slow healing process. Why was she dreaming about him again? She didn’t know and forced better memories into her mind. Falling back asleep was a task. After a while, Emma got up, grabbed a blanket, and walked into the small living room, looking out into the backyard with her arms wrapped around her. She lived in her parents’ guest house and was a week away from turning twenty-one. Her parents had given her at least the notion of having her own space by letting her live in the casita built on their property after her failed college try. Emma’s parents’ home was settled along the foothills of beautiful, sunny Southern California on a half-acre horse property. Although they didn’t have horses, they remodeled the backyard into a tiny luxury resort gathering space. The Sharps were a huge family, and her parents’ house was the main one to gather in practically every weekend. The casita was built so no one used the main house during such gatherings, and her mother didn’t have to clean a considerable amount of space. It consisted of a decent-sized kitchen complete with a range, oven, and dishwasher, a small living room, a full bathroom, and a large bedroom with a king-sized bed. Her ex-high school boyfriend lived across the street with his parents, too. By the sound of it, he was home with several friends, blaring music and probably working on their cars in his parents’ massive garage with every tool imaginable. They had a rough relationship, fighting constantly; some of it probably stemmed from her trauma with Jesse. The verbal abuse was a lot at times, and their fights were terrible, but he was sweet and highly thoughtful when they weren’t fighting, which was often. At homecoming their senior year, her A.P. History teacher let her cry in the storage closet. At the same time, he escorted Austin outside to cool down after a particularly nasty fight over her dancing with some of the boys who protected her from Jesse. It was the most embarrassing thing she had ever experienced. At prom, it was so bad that they left early. Their relationship was over after the breakup, and they were not even amenable to each other. Emma hadn’t broken it off easy and instead let him find out she had been texting another guy while they “were on a break”. Emma had shitty luck with men. She always seemed to attract the crazy ones. One guy Emma had started talking to had pinned her against a wall and punched a hole next to her head when her friend Peirce had texted asking her to come to a party. She never saw that guy again. Moving home was the best decision for her right now, even if she initially regretted giving up school. Standing by the large glass doors, she pulled the blanket around her shoulders tighter as she felt cold. It had to be the right decision, and the damage was already done. Emma sighed, turned away from the doors, and walked the few steps to the small living room couch. She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, looking for something to watch and hopefully fall back asleep. In the morning, she had work at her cousin’s place. He had hired her when she came home as a favor to her mother and just wanted to sleep before driving to the beach in prime morning traffic. After work, Emma would probably visit Disneyland to take some of this edge off. She could text Collin to see if he wanted to meet her there later when the sun was up; no point in forcing someone else to be awake with her. She looked at the time and sighed. She needed to sleep. The soft voices of whatever movie she hit on Netflix lulled her to sleep at last, and too soon, her alarm was blaring at her. Emma yelped when, instead of rolling over to turn off her phone alarm, she fell off the couch. Oh, right. She had moved out of bed. Groaning, she moved toward the bedroom, turned off the annoying alarm, and went to the bathroom to shower.